Mystery Herd

by Paul Lederer

  Trinity continued to squint toward the low, bleak knoll he thought the shots were coming from, but he saw nothing, not even a trail of gunsmoke which the breeze would dissipate as soon as it rose.

  But far across the valley he saw the bunch of Owl riders he had assumed were riding to the Dos Picos to hunt for strays. They had heard the shots, apparently, and had quickened their ponies’ pace. After a minute, apparently frightened off by the cowboys, the rifleman halted his assault. Trinity sat up, his pistol still in his hand. Holly was beside him, hatless, her hair spiked with burrs. She leaned her head against his shoulder and sat waiting beside him.

  There were no more shots from their ambusher. The cowhands had slowed and veered off toward their original destination with the cessation of fire.

  ‘So, that is that,’ Holly said, turning frightened golden eyes up toward Trinity.

  ‘It seems so. Give it another few minutes, then we’ll collect our horses.’

  The cool morning had grown warm with the ascension of the sun, and insects now hummed around them. The cowboys had vanished into the distance, riding toward Dos Picos.

  ‘Trinity?’ Holly said.

  ‘Yes?’ He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. She didn’t object to the gesture.

  ‘Who was it, do you think? Who did they want to kill – you or me?’

  It was a good question. Trinity had assumed that he was the target – but who and why eluded him. Surely Willie Meese had not carried a bunkhouse fight to this extreme, not while his boss lady was riding with Trinity.

  ‘You think it was you who was the target – don’t you, Holly?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t know who.’

  He fixed his eyes on hers. His grip involuntarily tightened on her arm as he held her to him. She did not pull away. ‘Who would want to kill you, Holly? Why?’

  ‘Money,’ she answered simply. ‘I am about to become an heiress, Trinity, in case you haven’t realized it. The Owl is worth quite a bit.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  She went on, speaking past his interruption.

  ‘None of us has seen the will Father made yet. A lawyer named McAfee is coming up here from Sage to read it.’

  ‘I was told that in your family the eldest son always inherited.’

  ‘My father was not that hidebound in his thinking,’ Holly insisted.

  ‘You think someone suspects that the Owl might fall to you?’

  ‘Or a large portion of it,’ she said. Trinity had risen to his feet. He dusted his pants off and offered a hand to Holly, drawing her erect. They both stood looking eastward at the knoll where the shots were believed to have originated.

  ‘But certainly Russell wouldn’t.…’ Trinity said in defense of his new-found friend.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Holly said in exasperation obviously fed by fear. ‘He deserted from the army and managed to get here the day Father died. How do any of us know that Father really sent for him?’

  ‘I can’t believe that.’

  ‘Oh, Russ has always been a great liar. When we were younger … and then there’s Earl, of course. Did I tell you he arrived late last night? Well, he did. Saying quite a bit about troubles he was having down on his Texas spread – lack of water being chief among them, plus sporadic Indian raids and a squabble with some Mexican landowners.’

  Trinity frowned. It sounded as if Earl needed money and needed it quickly.

  ‘And don’t forget Millicent,’ Holly went on. ‘I know she likes to present herself as a kitten curled up before the fire, but she can shoot, believe me.’

  ‘Whoever it was,’ Trinity said, ‘we’re both lucky he wasn’t that good of a shot.’

  They walked downslope to gather up the reins to their frightened horses. Trinity was still thinking of the possible identity of the man behind the sights. He did not believe it could be Millicent; that would not be her way of doing things. If she were disposed to harm Holly, she would find a more subtle method than clambering up through the rocks and emptying a Winchester magazine at her sister. What about Vincent Battles whom Holly still apparently held in high esteem? Trinity didn’t trust the man, didn’t like his looks, however irrational that feeling might be. Plus there was still Willie Meese – maybe the man was crazy enough to try to take his revenge on Trinity with a long gun, Holly’s proximity be damned.

  ‘It’s quite a tangle,’ Trinity said as he swung aboard the now-calmed piebald. He watched Holly pull herself into the paint pony’s saddle.

  ‘I know you wondered about the snappish mood I was in yesterday when I met you,’ Holly said as they rode easily toward home. ‘But my father had just died. I loved him, of course, but I had also always counted on his savvy to run the ranch, every facet of it. Earl was gone, Millicent was no help. I was left alone to try to manage the Owl – a job which, I must admit, overwhelmed me. The day to day decisions left me a babbling fool. How I was to handle the sale of the herd and lead a trail drive was more than daunting. I just couldn’t handle it. I knew it, and sent for Vincent Battles. He had worked for us before, and I knew he was a man of experience. I decided to leave it all in his lap for the time being. What else was there to do? I was like a passenger on a train thrust into the role of engineer – I had an idea what had to be done, but no real comprehension of the nature of the beast.’

  ‘You did what you could. I don’t blame you for being confused and angry.’

  ‘Then out of the blue, Russ shows up! If Father sent for him, I didn’t know anything about it. And he dragged you along with him, Trinity.’ Again those golden eyes met his. ‘And I don’t know a thing about you. I know you’re not telling me the whole truth about who you are.’

  ‘Just a friend,’ Trinity said as they neared the house.

  ‘Just a friend of Russell’s.’

  ‘Just a friend,’ he repeated to the girl with the golden eyes, as they rode past the lone blue spruce tree to the front of the white house, where sorrow and confusion still reigned.

  Russell Bates stood on the front porch, watching their return, his eyes narrowed with puzzlement. He was dressed now in fresh clothes – a white shirt and black jeans and he was shaven, his hair slicked down with water or oil or both.

  ‘You two have made friends, have you?’ Russell asked as he caught Holly’s paint horse by the bridle so she could swing down more easily.

  ‘We met on the trail,’ was all Holly said, leaving her brother to match her own explanation with that he had given to her about meeting Trinity. ‘Where’s Earl?’

  ‘Storming around somewhere. He more or less told me and Vincent Battles both to stay out of matters, that he would handle Owl affairs, he being the more experienced cattleman as well as Lew Bates’s oldest son.’

  ‘What did Vincent have to say about that?’ Holly asked.

  ‘Well, I don’t use that kind of language, but he told Earl in no uncertain terms that you had hired him on as foreman, and he was going to do the job until you told him he was fired. They went at it tooth and nail for a long time before Vincent just threw up his hands and went out the back door, slamming it shut behind him.’

  ‘I don’t like that,’ Holly said.

  ‘It was pretty predictable,’ Trinity put in.

  ‘If I’d known Father was going to pass away so soon—’

  ‘You wouldn’t have invited Vince Battles up here?’ Russell asked.

  ‘Wouldn’t I have? I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘But if Millicent hadn’t invited Earl, we wouldn’t have this – two lobo wolves, each trying to assume the boss dog position.’

  ‘Millicent couldn’t have not told Earl,’ Russell said. ‘You would have done the same thing – how could Earl be kept away from Father’s deathbed? There are family obligations.’

  ‘It’s all about the will,’ Holly said in as sharp a tone as any she had used the day before, ‘Earl doesn’t care about the trail drive or Owl – unless it is bequeathed to him.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Holly,’ Russell
said.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ she spat back. ‘Then where was Earl all those years when Father was weakening each day, trying to make sure that the ranch was kept up, his legacy a rich one?’

  ‘I don’t know. Earl wanted to do something on his own, I expect. I know I did. Both of us had arguments with Father over our decisions, but a son can’t be held a slave to his father’s dreams.’

  ‘You preferred to be a soldier?’ Holly said with mockery.

  ‘I liked the idea. It represented freedom.’

  ‘A lot of freedom you’ll have when they catch you and throw you in the stockade,’ Holly said hotly. But she was running out of steam now, her voice not so fiery. Trinity thought that she was considering that matters on the Owl had gotten much worse, not better, now that her brothers and Vincent Battles had appeared.

  ‘Why are you here anyway?’ Holly asked Russell. ‘You can see we have enough men around to manage the drive.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Russell told her stiffly, ‘because my father sent for me. I don’t know if it was the drive or something else that he wished me to take care of.’

  ‘What else?’ Holly waved her hands overhead. ‘What could there be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Russell answered in the same wooden tone. ‘But I mean to find out and see that my father’s last wishes are addressed.’

  ‘You’re crazy, Russ, you know that? Unless this is all something you’ve fabricated to duck out from under army tedium.’

  ‘I have not fabricated my father’s death,’ Russell said coldly. Now, he too, had grown tired of this pointless argument, Trinity thought. He stood by, his horse’s reins in his hand, studying the two – brother and sister – so alike despite their differing points of view.

  Russell Bates was not quite finished. ‘As for having enough men to make me superfluous on the Owl – you have enough men. You have more than enough. You have, as you said, two snarling wolves fighting over the pack. You also should know that Earl brought half a dozen Texas roughnecks with him. I would hate to see how they will get along with Vincent Battles’s crew when they find out they have been hired on to do the same job.’

  ‘That sounds a litde ominous,’ Holly said. ‘I’ll tell Vincent and Earl to do something about it, though I don’t see what can be done.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ Russell said. ‘They both want control of things, and each has his own contingent of men.’

  ‘It could lead to fighting,’ Holly said thoughtfully, nibbling on her lower lip.

  ‘It could lead to a lot more than that. It could lead to shooting, and you know it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose there’s any way to separate the two factions,’ Trinity said. Both looked at him, shaking their heads.

  ‘There’s only the one bunkhouse. Father always meant to build another; he always expected the ranch to grow and prosper. But it was another of those projects we never got around to,’ Russell said.

  ‘The men will be fighting just for a place to sleep,’ Trinity commented.

  ‘I’ll talk to my brother and Vincent,’ Holly promised. ‘Maybe something can be worked out,’ she said knowing that it could not. She now lifted her eyes to Trinity. Gold eyes. ‘You must move into the big house, Trinity. I know there will be more trouble for you if you stay in the bunkhouse now.’

  Russell let his eyes flicker from his sister to Trinity. There was a question in them. Only yesterday his sister had been insistent that Trinity stay away from the house and bunk with the cowhands. What had changed her mind?

  ‘Your brother may not like that,’ Trinity said gravely, ‘or Vincent Battles.’

  ‘I don’t care what they like! It’s my house,’ Holly announced to the world, turning to look at the face of the two-storey white house, ‘and I’ll invite whatever guests I like into it.’

  Then she turned and walked up on to the porch and into the house, her back rigid. Russell smiled at Trinity. ‘It looks like you made a conquest.’

  ‘Not in any ordinary sense,’ Trinity said. ‘Are you going to hold that horse forever, or help me stable them up? I’m through riding for the day.’

  As they turned away from it, they could hear raised voices in the house. ‘Just be careful, Trinity,’ Russell told him. ‘I don’t know what you have in mind, but Holly is a volatile little keg of gunpowder. Besides, Vincent Battles has already staked his claim to her, in his own mind at least. You’d be dealing with a sort of hell if you tried to see that matters are arranged differently.’

  ‘Who says I have anything like that in mind?’ Trinity said gruffly as they reached the stable. ‘You’ve got too much imagination, Russell.’

  As they groomed and put away their horses, Trinity related what had happened that morning to him and Holly out on the range. Roger, the stableman, dozed in the corner, perched on a wooden barrel.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ Russell said, brushing the back of Holly’s paint pony. Over it’s back, he studied Trinity, busy with his piebald. ‘Who do you think it was?’

  ‘I really don’t know. You don’t suppose it could have been Willie Meese, trying to even the score?’

  ‘See that buckskin in the first stall?’ Russell asked. ‘That’s Meese’s horse. It hasn’t been ridden today. Cooky told me that Willie was having trouble just breathing, his nose being broken again.’

  ‘All right – that eliminates him,’ Trinity said, placing his currycomb aside. ‘Trouble is, that leaves us with a lot of suspects, doesn’t it? And no known motive.’

  ‘And you don’t know who he was shooting at.’ Russell’s head bowed in thought. ‘It had to be you, didn’t it, Trinity? I mean what man in his right mind goes around trying to kill a woman in this part of the country? He’d never live to hang for it – he’d be torn to bits.’

  ‘It had to be me,’ Trinity said unconvinced.

  ‘Unless someone stood to gain from killing Holly, is that what you’re thinking?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Trinity answered.

  ‘You didn’t say it because if that were so, it would have to be one of the family – or Vincent Battles. Or … me,’ Russell said, his eyes pleading for his friend’s trust.

  ‘It wasn’t you, Russell,’ Trinity said, walking nearer to let his hand drop on Russell Bates’s shoulder. ‘I know that.’

  ‘Thanks, Trinity,’ Russell said with feeling. Then his face flushed slightly and his eyes brightened. ‘You’ve got to help me figure out who was shooting at my sister, and why. Whoever it was might be tempted to try again.’

  ‘I agree,’ Trinity said, ‘but you’re laying a lot on me, Russell. You’ve given me two different and difficult jobs: to find out what your father needed done that was so important he asked you to desert your army post to do it, and to discover who might be trying to kill your sister – if she was the target. That is a lot to ask.’

  ‘I know it is.’ Russell removed his hat and ran his fingers through his now uncombed hair. He was agitated and had the right to be. Had it occurred to him that he also might be a target of the killer? Trinity assumed he had, but his concern was obviously only for Holly. ‘But don’t you think—?’

  ‘That the two matters – the concerns of your father and the shooting – might have the same cause? Yes, I do. What I don’t have,’ Trinity told him, ‘is a handle on why it is happening. Do you think someone has already viewed your father’s will and found it unfavorable toward him?’

  ‘I don’t see how. The lawyer, McAfee, has his offices down in Sage.’

  ‘There could have been another copy,’ Trinity reminded him. ‘You’ve been away from home quite awhile. If there was such a document only your sisters would be likely to know. You’d better ask them.’

  The two men walked out into the sunlight, brilliant after the shadows of the barn.

  ‘You know where this all points, don’t you?’ Russell said, his eyes fixed on the tall, blue spruce tree in the yard of the Bates’s house where a dozen or so raucous crows had decided to congregate. ‘Di
rectly at one of the other family members. Me, Earl or—’

  ‘Holly told me that Millicent was well acquainted with firearms.’

  ‘Yes, well so are a lot of people and they don’t all go around shooting their sisters.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it could have been Millicent.’

  ‘Has she taken a horse out this morning? You could ask Tonio.’

  ‘I won’t!’ Russell said defiantly. ‘I won’t insult Millicent like that. I tell you she’s not that sort of woman.’

  ‘A lot of people who aren’t “that sort” have found themselves driven to it in extraordinary circumstances,’ Trinity reminded him.

  Russell sighed, shrugged. ‘That’s so,’ he conceded. ‘All of this seems to point to Earl, doesn’t it? After all, he was expecting to inherit all of Owl one day.’

  ‘He still may be,’ Trinity speculated. ‘Since no one admits to seeing the will your father wrote. But,’ he reminded Russell, ‘Earl certainly wasn’t around when Dalton Remy was hanged, was he?’

  ‘No. Earl has only just arrived. But, Trinity! Earl was with me or around me all morning in the house. He can’t possibly have been the one who shot at you and Holly.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Trinity agreed. ‘But I’ve heard he brought in at least six men with him. One of them could have been dispatched to do the job.’

  ‘You won’t accept the fact that it could have been an outsider,’ Russell said dismally. He was trying to convince himself that it could be someone outside the family who had attempted to kill Holly Bates – if she had been the target Trinity believed she was. Who besides Willie Meese had a grudge against Trinity?

  ‘We’d better get to the bottom of this before someone is killed,’ Russell said.

  ‘I mean to – if there’s time,’ Trinity said. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked as both men stood looking at a surrey, drawn by a high-stepping red roan and sending up dust as it made its way towards the Bates house.

  ‘Someone who might have an answer to a part of this,’ Russell said with an expression that was part pained smile, part grimace. ‘If I’m not mistaken, that is the lawyer, Hugh McAfee from Sage, coming to read Father’s will.’